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Ann Kennedy

@antihebbiann.bsky.social

3.8K followers 190 following 180 posts

Theoretical neuroscientist interested in brain-body interactions and evolution of adaptive behavior. Associate Professor at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · Dec 11

Interested in diffusion models, behavior forecasting, internal states, neuromechanical modeling, reservoir computing, joint neural/behavioral datasets? Missing the sunshine?

We have multiple fully funded postdoc positions, come join us!

The Kennedy lab is recruiting for multiple funded postdoctoral positions in theoretical and computational neuroscience, following our recent lab move to Scripps Research in sunny San Diego, California.
Ongoing projects in the lab span topics in:
- reservoir computing with heterogeneous cell types
- reinforcement learning/control theory analysis of complex behavior
- neuromechanical whole-organism modeling
- imitation learning/forecasting of mouse social interactions
- joint analysis/modeling of effects of internal states on neural + vocalization + behavior data
With additional NIH and foundation funding for:
- characterizing progression of behavioral phenotypes in Parkinson’s
- modeling cellular/circuit mechanisms underlying internal state-dependent changes in neural population dynamics
- characterizing neural correlates of social relationships across species
Projects are flexible and can be tailored to applicants’ research and training goals, and there are abundant opportunities for new collaboration with local experimental groups.
San Diego has a fantastic research community and very high quality of life. Our campus is located at the Pacific coast, at the northern edge of UCSD and not far from the Salk Institute. We offer competitive postdoctoral stipends that reflect coastal cost-of-living expectations and include a relocation bonus, with research professorship positions available for qualified applicants.
More information about the lab at https://www.kennedylab.org.
Please email Ann Kennedy akennedy@scripps.edu with inquiries.

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 1d

In fact I am giving a talk on how this kind of study can inform AI later today :)

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Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Scripps Research @scripps.edu · 1d

The NIH has awarded a $14.2M Director’s Transformative Research Award to a team led by Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist @ardemp.bskyverified.social, Prof. @liye-tsri.bsky.social and Assoc. Prof. @xinjin.bsky.social to map interoception and build the first atlas of this hidden sixth sense.

Scripps Research-led team receives $14.2M NIH award to map the body’s “hidden sixth sense”

www.scripps.edu

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

PS- Having never worked on pain before, the background reading for this project was really fascinating. For example, this abstract from P.D. Wall's 1979 "On the relation of injury to pain".

(But given Wall's opinion on theorists studying pain perhaps the feeling wouldn't be mutual.)

Pain is better classified as an awareness of a need-state than as a sensation. It serves more to promote healing than to avoid injury. It has more in common with the phenomena of hunger and thirst than it has with seeing or hearing. The period after injury is divided into the immediate, acute and chronic stages. In each stage it is shown that pain has only a weak connection to injury but a strong connection to the body state.

Quote from Patrick Wall's "Pain: The Science of Suffering" on a "confusing mess generated by philosophers who constructed idealized 'rational' sensory systems in happy ignorance of the working of living organisms."

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

Congratulations to co-first authors Nitsan Goldstein and my awesome postdoc Amadeus Maes for their work- this was a fun project!

with bksy handles this time: @betleylab.bsky.social @nitsangoldstein.bsky.social 🐁

Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · 2d

Brain area linked to chronic pain discovered — offering hope for treatments @nature.com @betleylab.bsky.social @antihebbiann.bsky.social @nitsangoldstein.bsky.social @pennngg.bsky.social @scripps.edu @pittanesthesiology.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

But the bigger takeaway is: when you have competing survival needs and one must suppress another, gating out inputs to a system is more effective than gating outputs or changing costs of actions.

It suggests early afferent sensory/interoceptive areas as a target of modulation for flexible behavior.

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

Our model also predicts dynamics of internal pain and effort states- which look intriguingly like two populations of neurons the Betley lab found during miniscope imaging of PBN!

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

We tried a handful of manipulations, but found that the only really reliable way to suppress pain-coping behavior was to gate out the pain input to the controller. Which PBN is well positioned to do, as it receives direct input from dorsal horn of the spine!

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

We then asked: computationally, what should NPY signals to to change how this model behaves? Our first guess was it should work by making coping behavior (licking) more 'expensive' in terms of effort, but in the face of a long-lasting pain input (persisting over an hour) this barely changed behavior

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

Computationally, how is NPY changing behavior? We formulated pain-coping as a control problem- say the goal of the brain is to minimize perceived pain with minimum "effort" (ie time spent attending to pain). Given this goal we can train models to produce 'optimal' behavior to minimize effort + pain

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

If you are in pain, you go to your nest and lick your wounds and recover- but if you're starving and you do this you'll die, so food-deprived brains have a way to switch off the pain-coping behavior.

Nitsan Goldstein in the Betley lab found that TMT also suppresses pain, ALSO via NPY in PBN!

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

The work builds off of an amazing result from Amber Alhadeff--
paper: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
essay: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

when mice are food-deprived, AgRP neurons projecting to parabrachial nucleus start releasing neuropeptide Y, and this mechanism suppresses pain-coping behavior.

A Neural Circuit for the Suppression of Pain by a Competing Need State

Hunger suppresses responses to pain through an AgRP/NPY circuit.

www.cell.com

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 2d

Finally out: our recent work with Nick Betley is a view into how the brain reshapes its behavior in the face of competing survival needs- and also a potential angle on treatment targets for enduring pain.

A brief rundown...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A parabrachial hub for need-state control of enduring pain - Nature

Activity in a set of parabranchial neurons in the mouse brain is increased during chronic pain, predicts coping behaviour, and can be modulated by circuits activated by survival threats.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Ardem Patapoutian @ardemp.bskyverified.social · 3d

we are almost booked! Only a handful of openings left. So, please do attend if you register. Also, here is the poster!

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Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Ardem Patapoutian @ardemp.bskyverified.social · 4d

Attending #SfN2025 in San Diego☀️? Don’t miss the Dorris Neuroscience Center Symposium at @scripps.edu, happening right before the meeting. A great lineup of speakers to kick off your SfN week. Plan your trip accordingly and register for free here:
www.eventbrite.com/e/dorris-neu...

Please amplify!

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 4d

I got so many "you work on oceanography now?" comments when I moved here :) Having a project on jellyfish probably didn't help!

Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 4d

Funny that an immune researcher was appointed at an oceanography institute!

Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Armando Rosario-Lebrón @rosariolebronentomology.com · Jul 20

A Peacock Fly (Callopistromyia sp.) showing off the beautiful display on those wings! They strut around waving their wings and doing a little wiggle, an amazing behavior right in your own backyard.

#Invert #Diptera #bugsky 🌿 #entomology

Macrophotograph of a Peacock Fly (Callopistromyia sp) resting on a slightly weathered metal beam. The fly holds its patterned wings upright in an elaborate, fan-like display, appearing almost butterfly-like. Each wing is intricately marked with shades of dark brown, black, white, and subtle hints of iridescent blue, creating a mosaic-like camouflage pattern. The fly’s body is robust and heavily speckled in shades of brown, black, and cream. Bright, vivid orange-red eyes stand out distinctly on its head, along with delicate antennae and fine bristles visible along its legs and thorax. The textured metal beam beneath it has faint scratches and rust streaks, providing contrast that highlights the detail and coloration of the insect.

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Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 8d

Really cool story - bird species from across the world make the same sound to warn against cuckoos, and they can even understand each other. Feeds into ideas Darwin had about the origin of language! www.newscientist.com/article/2498...

20 bird species can understand each other’s anti-cuckoo call

Several species of birds from different continents use and understand similar alarm calls when they see an invader that might lay an egg in their nest – this shared call hints at the origin of languag...

www.newscientist.com

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 9d

When you live in an arid climate and your colleague is collecting VNO stimuli

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Reposted by Ann Kennedy

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 10d

A maternal-fetal PIEZO1 incompatibility as a barrier to Neanderthal-modern human admixture https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.29.679417v1

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Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Rocio Servin @rocioservin.bsky.social · 10d

We’re hiring!
My new Gut–Brain Axis Lab at Northwestern is looking for a Research Technologist 2 to help build the lab and explore how the nervous system shapes gut health and disease.
🔬 Apply here: myhr.northwestern.edu/psp/hrnu/EMP...

JavaScript is required. This web browser does not support JavaScript or JavaScript in this web browser is not enabled.

myhr.northwestern.edu

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 10d

After 12 days over 3000 people have signed up for the MABe 2025 competition, and almost 300 have made submissions!

If you'd like to join in, kagglers have shared a K-nearest-neighbors baseline notebook that gets a respectable F1 score of 0.39 across labs: www.kaggle.com/code/taylors...

MABe Nearest Neighbors: Testing New Features

Explore and run machine learning code with Kaggle Notebooks | Using data from MABe Challenge - Social Action Recognition in Mice

www.kaggle.com

Reposted by Ann Kennedy

Malu Murugan @malu-murugan.bsky.social · 11d

Come be my colleague! Lots of exciting science, fantastic students and supportive colleagues. Emory University Biology Department tenure-track assistant professor position in neuroscience. share.google/945Jko4W1MTA.... Please feel free to retweet and share widely.

Emory University Biology Department tenure-track assistant professor position in neuroscience - Atlanta, Georgia job with [email protected] | 675335

Candidate uses experimental approaches to examine any aspect of neural function, including molecular, cellular, systems, or developmental neuroscience

share.google

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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 12d

It continues to be weird to me that adult CNS neurons have a single, nonmotile cilium just hanging out, maybe acting as a site for receptor expression. Like a little extra antenna that we all just ignore in our drawings of neurons. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Primary Cilia in the Developing and Mature Brain

Primary cilia emerge as key regulators of development, neurogenesis, and signaling in the mammalian brain. Guemez-Gamboa et al. review the status, genetic basis, potential, controversies, and unanswer...

www.cell.com

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